Early Classification Schemes

The earliest known climatic classification scheme originated

with the ancient Greeks, perhaps 2200 years ago.
Although the “known world” was very small at that time,
Greek scholars were aware of the shape and approximate
size of Earth. They knew that at the southern limit of their
world, along the Nile River and the southern coast of the
Mediterranean, the climate was much hotter and drier than
on the islands and northern coast of that sea. At the other
end of the world known to the Greeks, along the Danube
River and the northern coast of the Black Sea, things were
much colder, especially in winter. So the Greeks spoke of
three climatic zones: the Temperate Zone of the midlatitudes,
in which they lived (Athens is at 38° N); the Torrid
Zone of the tropics to the south; and the Frigid Zone to the
north. Because they knew that Earth is a sphere, they suggested
that the Southern Hemisphere has similar Temperate
and Frigid Zones, making five in all.
For many centuries, this classification scheme was
handed down from scholar to scholar. Gradually these five
climatic zones were confused with, and eventually their climates
ascribed to, the five astronomical zones of the Earth,
bounded by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and the
Arctic and Antarctic Circles (Figure 8-1). This revision put
the equatorial rainy zone in with the hot arid region in
the Torrid Zone, extended the Temperate Zone to include
much of what the Greeks had called Frigid, and moved the
Frigid Zone poleward to the polar circles. This simplistic
but unrealistic classification scheme persisted for more
than a thousand years and was finally discarded only in the
twentieth century.